³why?²
-------
According to the Yasmin mailman one word emails are not encouraged so
perhaps I shouldn¹t reply to this email. However, it is a good question,
even if the answer was apparent in my previous email.
The idea of direct experience of things is impossible because we are all
mediated, as soon as we are alive and in the world, becoming socialised,
becoming human. Direct experience of things assumes a lack of mediation
between that being experienced and that experiencing. It is possible to
argue that the thing being experienced and that experiencing are part of the
same thing; that existence is found in the interaction between things, the
intertwined agencies of things. This can also be regarded as an instance
mediation (even mediation itself, which is why I suggested that being human
is being mediated). Heidegger, Derrida, Bolter and many others have
rehearsed these arguments.
I think the origin of this thread was in a discussion on simulation and the
sense of the real that is is possible to get closer to a pure experience
of things through the use of more and more realistic simulations within more
and more immersive environments. This appears to represent some sort of
neo-modern, neo-romantic, yearning for a totalisation of experience and an
erasure of difference between us (the experiencer) and other (the
experienced). But this leaves out the question of the experience itself, and
that is where it all gets complicated. If you erase difference then perhaps
you erase experience, for they are likely the same thing.
One simple way to conceptualise this is offered by semiotics, as the
tri-partite structure of what is being described here resembles the
tri-partite structure of the sign, as proposed by Saussure. Some would argue
that our relationship with things is fundamentally concerned with, even an
instance of, semiosis. That we are part of the sign-making process. As soon
as recognition of and understanding of things begins then this process
begins. Even if one takes a less extreme position about this the thorough
mediation of the human remains evident.
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
CIRCLE research group
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
From: Janelle Cugley <blueskythink@iprimus.com.au>
Reply-To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:57:16 +0800
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation, remediation
why?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Biggs" <s.biggs@eca.ac.uk>
To: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation, remediation
The concept of remediation doesn¹t just apply to obvious media, such as TV,
cinema or computers. It also applies to how humans are humanly remediated.
>From when we are born we begin to learn language and other social
>signifiers
and processes of exchange. The process of social mediation is initiated from
birth (it might even be possible to identify this process earlier in the
life cycle). Social mediation is not static, just as other media are not
static. The conventions around what things mean, and what their value might
be, change - as do their processes and structures. This is a process of
remediation. In this sense human is media.
The idea that it is possible to experience anything directly, as the
phenomenologists argued, is simply unsustainable.
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
CIRCLE research group
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
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